1. family and parenting
2. children

Brubacher: Interviewing about Multiple Similar, 2014
Interviewing Children about
Multiple Similar Events
Why is it important?
• Child sexual abuse: 43 – 75% cases involve
allegations of multiple events
• Particularization
– Episodic accounts of individual incidents
Sonja P. Brubacher, PhD
Central Michigan University
bruba1sp@cmich.edu
28th Annual San Diego International Conference on Child
and Family Maltreatment
Jan 31, 2014
• Not always required (e.g., People v. Jones, 1990)
– Can enhance credibility
Podirsky v R., 1990; R. v B. [G.], 1990; S v. R, 1989; Burrows & Powell, 2013
Why is it difficult?
• Important Terminology
– Multiple Similar or Repeated Events
– Script
• Generic details
• What happens? You can do X
– Semantic vs. episodic ‘re-living’ (e.g., Tulving, 2000)
Challenges in retrieving episodes
Occ 2
Episode
3
• Organized structures
• Makes experience predictable
• E.g., restaurant script
• Contain slots for alternatives
• Recall of generic details easier than recall
of specific episodes (Hudson & Nelson, 1986)
– Episode
• Specific details
• What happened? She did X
Occ 1
Scripts
Specific versus Generic Memories
Occ 4
• Source-monitoring (Johnson et al., 2003)
Episodic language:
“We sang ‘Happy Birthday’ and ate
chocolate cake”
Generic language (timeless present): “You
sing songs, you eat cake”
Event-specific details:
“We played pin the tail on the donkey”
Generalized knowledge:
“You can play games”
“I got a treat bag with stars on it to take
home”
Conditionals: “If you were good, you
might get a treat bag”
Specific sequences: “At the end, I opened
my presents”
Optionals: “You can open presents before
you eat cake or after”
– Source similarity
• Script/gist interference (Brainerd & Reyna, 2004; Powell et
al., 1999)
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Brubacher: Interviewing about Multiple Similar, 2014
Toolbox
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•
•
•
•
•
Episodic Narrative Practice
• Practice is important component of many
guidelines (e.g., NICHD; Lamb et al., 2007; Stepwise; Yuille, 2002)
• ↑ Amount and/or Accuracy
Episodic Narrative Practice
Frequency Questions
Open-ended prompts
Utility of generic narrative
Labels
Differences
Language
(Lamb et al., 2013; Roberts et al., 2004; Sternberg et al. 1997)
• Practice talking about episodes of
repeated events transfers to more
specific talk in substantive phase
(Brubacher et al., 2011)
See Roberts, Brubacher, Powell, & Price, 2011, for a review
Practice: Awareness of Frequency
Episodic Narrative Practice (Brubacher et al., 2011)
Incident Practice
Script Practice
Novel Practice
Time you remember best of
swimming lessons & another
What usually happens at
swimming lessons
Time you rode a horse
(only once)
• 5-8 year olds; 1or 4 times (N = 240)
Script Practice
Novel Practice
Time you remember best of
swimming lessons & another
What usually happens at
swimming lessons
Time you rode a horse
(only once)
Percentage of Children
Incident Practice
“Target/Substantive” phase
(Laurier Activities)
Activities introduced
Asked about frequency if not spontaneously provided
Practice: Language use in Target
70
60
Asked
60
50
50
40
40
30
30
20
20
10
10
0
Incident
Script
Novel
Incident
5- & 6-year olds
Script
Novel
7- & 8-year olds
Episodic Narrative Practice
• Can model to children that individual episodes
are important for discussion (Brubacher et al., 2011)
b
– Spontaneous reports of frequency
Repeated
Single
Repeated
Single
Repeated
60
Single
Percent Episodic
80
Delayed
a
a
80
40
Immediate
70
0
Free recall narrative – episodic prompts only  Specific occurrence
100
80
20
0
Incident
Incident Practice
Script
Script Practice
Novel
Novel Practice
Time you remember best of
swimming lessons & another
What usually happens at
swimming lessons
Time you rode a horse
(only once)
• Did not increase false multiple reports by children with
single experience
– Increases specific details
– Practices thinking about what is different
• Models ‘labelling’ of occurrences
• Need not take longer than standard practice
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Brubacher: Interviewing about Multiple Similar, 2014
Frequency Questions
90
• Children struggle to provide exact numbers
– Can affect credibility
• “One time or more than one time” (Lamb et al, 2007;
Orbach & Pipe, 2011)
“I don’t know. 50 times out of the whole entire year. I
don’t really do numbers.” (People vs. Avila, 2001).
One
80
Percent of Responses
(Sharman et al., 2011)
• Often use words they do not understand
when referring to time, frequency and
duration (Poole & Lamb, 1998)
Frequency Questions:
Children’s responses
70
Four
60
50
DK
40
30
3 to 5
20
10
0
Other
0
0
Single
Multiple
Drohan-Jennings, Roberts, Brubacher, Glisic, Powell, & Friedman (2013, April)
Frequency Questions in
Investigative Interviews
• 15% of interviews did not contain any Frequency Qs (see
Brubacher et al., 2013)
• As estimated number of incidents increased, so did Qs about
Frequency
– Linear relationship between Abuse Severity and Number of Frequency
Qs asked
# Frequency Qs
3
Open-ended Prompts
• Critical for all interviews
• Age-related improvements
• Increased complexity in cases involving allegations
of multiple abuse
– Suggestive open-ended prompts must be avoided:
• Content
2
– “tell me everything about when he took off his t-shirt”
• Temporal components
1
– “tell me everything about when he took off his shirt the time he
tried to kiss you”
0
Exposure
n= 4
Touch over
n = 16
Touch under
n = 42
Penetration
n = 35
– Temporally-suggestive prompts are especially difficult
(Powell et al., 2000)
Table includes unpublished data from Brubacher et al., 2013
Open-ended Prompts:
Temporally-linked details
• Allowing children to describe “what usually
happens” (see Brubacher et al., 2012)
2.5
Number of Details
*
2
1.5
True Details
Suggested Details
1
0.5
Utility of Generic Narrative
– Appears not to be detrimental to accuracy
– May increase amount of overall information
– May produce “episodic leads”
• More common as incidents increase
(Brubacher et al. 2013; see also Brubacher & La Rooy, 2013)
0
Linked to episode
Not linked
Powell et al., 2000
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Brubacher: Interviewing about Multiple Similar, 2014
Number of difference references
Utility of Generic Narrative:
Reporting of Episodic Leads
Episodic Leads & Labels
The last time
• Labeling occurrences: Challenge for investigative
interviewing (Powell et al., 2007)
3
2.5
• Labels: “the time/day when…”
2
The time in the
shed
• Episodic Leads: specific detail not used in labeling
manner
1.5
• If distinctive details can be identified, occurrences
should be easier to discriminate (e.g., Johnson et al., 1993)
1
0.5
0
Generic Narrative first
Episodic Narrative first
Order of Recall
• Labels help structure reports
• “Tell me about the time in the car park”
• “What else happened the time you were home sick from school?”
Brubacher, Roberts & Powell (2012) * 7- and 8-year olds only
Labels in Forensic Interviews
Label Types in Forensic Interviews
Proportion of Labels Generated
• Interviewers used more Temporal Labels than
did children (Brubacher et al., 2013)
0.6
0.5
*
• Age positively correlated with proportion of childprovided (versus interviewer-provided) labels
• Interviewers, however, replaced the children’s
labels with their own 35% of the time
– E.g., “the time in the shed”  “the last time”
– Because these are field interviews, we do not know
how often these replacements were inaccurate
Interviewer
0.4
Child
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
Temporal
Locational
Abuse
Situational
Label Type
• The more often the interviewer replaced the
child’s labels for occurrences, the less likely the
child was to follow the interviewer’s
conversational shifts (Brubacher et al., 2013)
Differences
• What if children do not spontaneously provide
any Episodic Leads or Labels?
– Little published evidence, but:
• “Was there ever a time when something
different happened?” coupled with “tell me
about that time”
• “Did (label) happen any other time?”
– When this question was included in a lab-based study, 98% of
the resultant labels were unique to only one episode
– 66% of the total labels were generated by children (all were
[eventually] unique)
Brubacher, 2011; Brubacher et al., 2011 March
Watch your language!
• Episodic prompts
–
–
–
–
“Tell me what happened that time”
“You said ‘he got on the bed’. Then what happened?”
“What else happened, the time mum was at the shops?”
“Ok, you said there was a time he grabbed you in the shed.
Tell me everything that happened”
• Generic prompts
– “Tell me what happens”“You said ‘he gets on the bed.’
Then what happens?”
– “What else happens, when mum’s gone out?”
– “Ok, you said you’ve been in the shed with him a few
times. Tell me what happens.”
See Brubacher 2011; 2012; 2013; Schneider et al., 2010
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